He made for the Aurora and found Captain Weaver on board. He immediately related Mr Adams' story, and asked Captain Weaver if he had seen Miss Lucy Acton down by the Minorca or near her, or aboard of her shortly before she sailed.,
The breakfast bell at this moment summoned them from the lawn. At table Captain Acton said that he had asked Mr Lawrence to meet him at his office down on the quay at half-past ten. This office was in a little house a few minutes' walk from the warehouses. Captain Acton employed a person who looked after his affairs, who, with the assistance of a[Pg 82] couple of clerks, saw to the delivery and loading of cargoes, to the needs of the ships in respect of gear, canvas, carpenters' and boatswains' stores, and so forth. But not the less did the gallant Captain take an interest in his own business. He was laudably anxious to promote the prosperity of Old Harbour and Old Harbour Town, but though he was a rich man—a very rich man indeed in those days, having come into a fortune of eighty thousand pounds, together with the finely wooded and beautiful freehold estate known as Old Harbour House—he was by no means disposed to lose money in marine speculation; so he kept a keen eye upon the books, examined narrowly all the demands which were made for the ship's furniture, closely watched the markets in rum, sugar, and coffee, and having a clear perception of the risks of war, justly appraised the value of his tonnage to those who desired consignments through his bottoms.,
Mr Lawrence walked on. He thought of old Greyquill when he passed the place where he had stopped to talk. He crossed the quaint old bridge duplicated in the river, which streamed with becalmed surface up here and mirrored with the precision of a looking-glass the hues and shapes of every bird that swept the glassy surface for an insect, and gaining a rich lane formed by seven or eight hundred years of growth, for a monastery had stood here and a knight had had his manor where now the land was without relic of stone or brick; but the vegetation left by these people flourished, and though not above half a mile in length that lane formed one of the most glorious, soothing, enfolding, impulse-creating walks in all that country-side which abounded in little paradisaical reaches of a like kind; I say Mr Lawrence crossed the bridge, and emerging from the lane struck the high-road, and presently gained his father's cottage..
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